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The Wasp Micro Air Vehicle
Victor Cheng writes "In developments that bring together a variety of technologies including robotics and digital imaging the Wasp Micro Air Vehicle is one of the Pentagon's latest tools currently in testing of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (although I'm thinking its not going to need a carrier to get this one up and flying). The 13 inch Wasp comes equipped with 2 video cameras, GPS and has a myriad of possible applications. Next time you hear something Buzzing around when you're at a family picnic you might think twice before swatting it could be an expensive action."
"Next time you hear something Buzzing around when you're at a family picnic you might think twice before swatting it could be an expensive action."
Like hell I'd pay for it. Gov't should be think twice before spying on its citizens. Especially at such a close range!
Digital Sailor
I do believe you'd get that thing swatted, stomped and whacked with a hammer/shovel/whatever-is-handy for good measure too. And you might be looking at a lawsuit too.
Basically I see the point in this thing, but the metaphor in the summary is an awful one. That it's useful for a lot of other things, is obvious. But using it to annoy others and invade their privacy, is one use I'm not entirely looking forward to.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Search operation at sea. A couple of platoons of these could cover countless square kilometers in a hurry. You'd only need the spotters to monitor the video feed for any found subjects. Half the manpower as you'd skip the need for pilots.
I don't think it is THAT big. It will be very useful for keeping an eye on a small area (say a block in Falluja) without being obvious. No, it is not designed to fly five foot over Osama without it being noticed. But this doesn't make it useless.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Suppose they had an autonomous surveillance vehicle that was literally the size of a housefly. Do you think they'd tell us?
Not that I think such a thing could be built right now, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't on somebody's drawing board. American needs intelligence and loves technical fixes. If there's a technical solution to an intelligence problem, somebody's bound to be workig on it. Remember how US Navy subs tapped Soviet undersea communication cables right in their harbors?
I actually surprised they acknowledge that something this size exists. It's small enough that it is probably hard to distinguish from a sea bird.
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